4th Edition is Just a Pen and Paper MMO.
Sorry. I've got to disagree. An accurate statement would be 4th Edition uses terminology made popular by MMOs to help express elements of the game that have always been there. What do I mean? I'll start with the Roles used to define classes in D&D.
If you see the terms Defender, Striker, Leader, and Controller you can certainly draw parallels to things like Tank, Striker, Healer, etc. used by MMOs. The important thing to remember is that Roles do not define what a character is; they define what a class is BEST AT. They are hardly the be-all, end-all of a class. Here's an example.
In most MMOs, if I play a Tank I'm going to be good for only a couple of things: taking hits and pulling aggro to myself. This is because MMOs are limited by the confines of AIs and the inability of the monsters and adversaries to make intelligent decisions. Monsters et al will focus on whomever provokes aggro against them and not against the most logical target.
In D&D there are 4 Defender classes in print at the moment: Fighter, Paladin, Swordmage, and Warden. The Defender role is designed to try to focus attacks on them by forcing enemies to make bad decisions, punishing them if they attack another target. Each class also has another role that they participate in, though they are best at the Defender role.
So take a Fighter. He marks everything he makes an attack roll against, giving the enemy a -2 to any attack roll that does not involve him (or her, to be fair gender-wise) as a target. In addition, any attempt to shift away from the Fighter or attack another target gives the Fighter a free attack against the marked enemy. If the enemy provokes an opportunity attack by moving away from the Fighter (regardless of whether it is marked or not) the Fighter stops its movement if he hits with his opportunity attack, and gets a bonus to hit with those attacks. In other words, it's like screaming at an enemy "Don't turn your back on me, I'm your real opponent!"
This is NOT the same as pulling aggro. The Fighter does not have any inherit ability to force an opponent to face him. The DM may always choose to have a marked target attack another, it just might not be a smart choice for that monster. While the Fighter does have exploits that allow him to pull a specific creature to him, the player must CHOOSE for the Fighter to have this exploit. It is the player's CHOICE to build his or her character to do that. Let's look at a specific power: "Come and Get It" (Fighter level 7 Encounter Exploit). The Fighter shifts all enemies within 3 squares of him 2 squares so they end adjacent to him and then makes an attack against all adjacent enemies (marking all of them in the progress). This is very similar to "pulling aggro" in an MMO. But I don't HAVE to pick that exploit. There are 4 other level 7 encounter exploits I can select instead that do different things; one imposes an attack penalty on the target, another increases the Fighter's AC, the third does additional damage, and the fourth lets the Fighter move without provoking opportunity attacks. In fact, looking through all the Fighter exploits in the PHB from levels 1 through 30... that is the ONLY POWER that pulls enemies to you. Every other power that causes forced movement shifts already adjacent enemies or pushes them. For a Fighter to make an enemy focus on him he must directly engage the enemy, and can normally do so against only one enemy at a time (with a few powers providing exceptions to this statement).
Not, in my opinion, very MMO-like at all.
Now let's compare roles to previous editions. We'll use the Fighter again.
What does a Fighter in 3rd do? Well, just by looking at the Class Entry we can see that he a) wears every type of armor and b) can use every type of weapon and c) gets one of the highest HD in the game. Oh, and he has NO OTHER CLASS FEATURES. In other words: Wear good armor so things miss a lot, swing heavy weapon to do damage, and have lots of hit points to soak up damage. Which is another way of saying that the default for him was to engage the enemies and take punishment otherwise meant for other party members... in other words he's a Defender, but a bad one because he has no default means of keeping an enemy focused on you (in fact if you're AC and damage are doing their jobs the enemy will want to GO AROUND YOU because there's nothing other than a single attack you can do to stop him.)
1st & 2nd Edition... the Fighter is... well, he wears heavy armor and uses a big weapon to engage the front lines of his foes while his allies attack from behind or at range.... Yup, that's a Defender. Of course they also fulfil 4e's role of melee striker because in these editions there wasn't anyone else to actually perform that role.
Let's compare other classes roles in combat (because that's as far as a role is supposed to effect a character - combat). Rogues? In both 4th and 4rd they are Strikers because their Sneak Attack class features present for large amounts of damage in specific situations, and they are lightly armored and mobile (3rd did it by making Tumble a necessity for the Rogue, 4th does it by giving the Rogue a lot of powers that let them shift to avoid opportunity attacks). In earlier editions they don't fill this role, but that's because Thieves (not Rogues) weren't meant to really do much of anything in combat, they were supposed to be checking for traps and opening locks.
Clerics? In 4th Edition they're Leaders, meaning they support other characters through providing Buffs and Healing. Really, the role should probably be called Support, but who would really be drawn to playing that? In 4th Edition the Cleric gets one of the best healing powers in the game and plenty of powers to provide bonuses to their party members in combat. Plus rituals for out of combat stuff. In 3rd? Well, their spell list DEFAULTED to healing spells... a strong indication of how they were meant to be played. They had a lot of buff spells... The only thing that's changed is that 3rd Edition Clerics were broken into being able to basically be ANY CLASS THEY WANTED because they could just buff themselves into the proper class/role. In 1st/2nd edition they were mainly walking healing potions, or a single facet of the Leader role.
D&D came up with roles first. MMOs were created to emulate elements of D&D and found terminology to help explain these elements to new players. 4e is simply taking the improved terminology back.
Your mileage may vary, but when I see a D&D class I don't see an MMO class. I see the same thing I've bben seeing since the 1980s with updated terminology and mechanics.
MMOs commonly use grinds to level up characters, or collection quests to get PCs started. D&D doesn't do that UNLESS THE DM WANTS IT TO. I'm not going to the forest and killing hundreds of respawning wolves to get that next level; I'm goin through planned encounters.
Random loot drops? MMOs stole that from D&D (go back to early edition DMGs with random treasure tables that they expected you to use and try to claim otherwise). 4e advocates pre-planned treasure parcels placed throughout the adventure as the DM sees fit, customizing them to help empower your players' choices ("I know you built your character to use an axe... but here's A SWORD instead" isn't really encouraged, and you'll never hear "I know you took a feat to use that Fullblade, but I keep rolling hammers on the treasure table!" in the 4e DMG).
Stupid AIs that say the same thing over and over again? Only if the DM is lazy.
Not being able to avoid a combat through negotiation or stealth? That's the way it flies in an MMO. 4e provides mechanics so you can still earn xp while not fighting the monsters.
Spending 30 minutes explaining raid tactics to your group while the boss is ON THE SCREEN? Again, only if the DM lets you do it (personally, Orcus is already attacking you. Keep talking if you want).
In summery, 4e's rules don't support it being an MMO any more than previous editions do. It borrows effective terminology to help explain concepts to new players (a smart business strategy), and continues to use elements that MMOs took from early editions of D&D.
4e only plays like an MMO if you make it.
I'll continue with other points in later posts.
End of Demented Rambling.
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